On her desk in the present day, Maya watched the three of them laugh. The audio peaked and crackled—the sound of 2014 wind hitting a cheap microphone.

The camera was shaky, held by someone walking backward. In the frame were three girls, their arms linked, walking down a sun-drenched suburban street. They were wearing mismatched thrift-store flannels and cheap plastic sunglasses.

The video reached the 4-minute mark. The younger Maya turned the camera around to face herself. She looked so different—wider eyes, no tired lines around them yet. She blew a kiss to the lens.

She thought about where they were now. Sarah was in London, married to a man Maya had only met through Instagram. Chloe hadn't replied to a text in three years; the last Maya heard, she was working in a lab in Seattle. They hadn't stayed "forever." Life had been a series of slow erasures—unreturned calls, missed birthdays, and the eventual transition from "best friends" to "people I used to know."

To her left, Chloe rolled her eyes but didn't let go of Sarah’s arm. "Actually, we’re leaving in exactly three months for college, you drama queen."

Maya moved her cursor to the "Share" button, then hesitated. She looked at Chloe’s name in her contacts, still there after all this time. She didn't send it. Instead, she right-clicked the file and moved it into a new folder titled Keep .

"In case we forget," the digital Maya whispered. "We were here."